Helmut Anheier

Helmut K. Anheier (born January 4, 1954) is a German-American academic. He is professor of sociology and past president of the Hertie School in Berlin. Until September 2019 he held a chair at the Max Weber Institute of Sociology, Heidelberg University, where he was also the Academic Director of the Center for Social Investment and Innovation.^[1] His research interests include civil society, social innovation, organizational theory, governance and policy research, social science methodology, including indicator models.^[2]

Helmut Anheier
Helmut K. Anheier at Hertie School Berlin, April 2016
Born	(1954-01-04) January 4, 1954 (age 71)
Nationality	German-American

Anheier studied sociology and economics at the University of Trier in Germany (1976–80) and obtained a MA, MPhil and PhD at Yale (1981, 1982, 1986). At Yale University, he studied under Juan Linz, Paul DiMaggio, Walter Powell, Scott Boorman and Charles Perrow focusing on comparative sociology, social network analysis and organizational sociology. While being a research assistant at Yale's Program on Nonprofit Organizations, he wrote his dissertation on comparative institutional development in West Africa, which involved fieldwork in Nigeria, Senegal and Togo (1983-4), and constitutes one of the first applications of comparative blockmodel analysis. While in Africa, he also conducted research on informal sector economies, business innovation, land entrepreneurship in urban areas in Nigeria and Ghana as part of a project at the University of Cologne (1985).

In 1986, Anheier became assistant professor for comparative sociology and methodology at Rutgers University, and in 1988 joined the United Nations International Narcotics Control Board ^[3] as a social affairs officer on a diplomatic track, where he worked on statistical estimates of the world supply and demand of controlled substances. In 1990, returning to Rutgers University, he also became co-director of the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project,^[4] one of the largest social science projects of the 1990s, operating in over forty countries to measure the economic and social relevance of nonprofit organizations. In 1998, he moved to the London School of Economics, where Anheier held a Centennial Professorship (2001-2006) and, with Lord Dahrendorf and Anthony Giddens as mentors, founded and directed the Centre for Civil Society to focus on civil society in the context of European integration. He then moved back to the US as Professor of Public Policy and Social Welfare (2001–11) at the University of California (UCLA), where he established another Center for Civil Society, this time with a focus on Southern California, philanthropy and globalization. While on leave from UCLA, he founded the Center for Social Investment and Innovation at Heidelberg in 2006, later joining the Max Weber Institute of Sociology, before taking on the helm of the Hertie School of Governance in 2009.

Initially, Anheier published mainly on comparative sociology, economic sociology, and social network analysis, and in the 1990s, increasingly on nonprofit organizations in an international perspective. In the 2000s, he published mostly on civil society and its comparative measurement as well as on nonprofit management and policy more generally. In the 2010s, he has so far largely focused on three areas: the role of philanthropic foundations in the U.S. and Europe; social innovations; and governance research, especially governance indicator systems.

Author of many publications, he has received various international awards for his scholarship.

Anheier contributed to the conceptual and methodological foundations of nonprofit and civil society research in several ways, including the social origins theory (wtth Lester M Salamon), the term Creative Philanthropy (with Diana Leat, and initiated the United Nations Handbook on Nonprofit Institutions as part of the system of national accounts. He founded several journals (Voluntas, Journal of Civil Society, Global Perspectives), book series including The Culture and Globalization Series, the Global Studies Encyclopedia, and the Global Civil Society Yearbook, 9]

He holds both US and German citizenships and was married to the artists Emilia Btrlo (1955-2025).

Selected bibliography

• Helmut K. Anheier and Regina List: International Dictionary of Nonprofit and Nongovernmental Organizations. London: Taylor & Francis (2005).
• Helmut K. Anheier and Diana Leat: Creative Philanthropy. New York, London: Routledge (2006).
• David Hammack and Helmut K. Anheier. A Versatile American Institution: The Changing Ideals and Realities of Philanthropic Foundations. Washington, DC: Brookings, (2013).
• David Hammack and Helmut K. Anheier: A Versatile American Institution. Washington DC: The Brookings Institution Press (2013).
• Helmut K. Anheier (ed.): Governance Challenges & Innovations. Financial and Fiscal Governance. Oxford University Press (2013).
• Hertie School of Governance: The Governance Report. Oxford: Oxford University Press (Helmut K. Anheier: Principal Investigator and Coordinator) (2013).
• Helmut K. Anheier. Nonprofit Organizations: Theory, Management and Policy. 2nd edition, fully revised and expanded. New York, NY, London: Routledge (2014).
• Helmut K. Anheier, Matthias Haber and Mark Kayser (eds.) Governance Indicators: Impact and Promise. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press (2018).
• Helmut K. Anheier and Diana Leat. The Ambiguity of Success: On the Performance of Philanthropic Foundations. London and New York: Routledge (2019).
• Helmut K. Anheier, Georg Mildenberger and Gorgi Krlev (eds.). Social Innovations: Comparative Perspectives. London: Routledge (2019).
• Helmut K. Anheier and Theodor Baums (eds.). Advances in Corporate Governance: Comparative Perspectives. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press (2020).
• Helmut K. Anheier and Stefan Toepler (eds.). The Routledge Companion to Nonprofit Managament. London: Routledge (2020).
• Helmut Anheier (ed.) The Future of the Liberal Democratic Order: The Key Questions. London and New York: Routledge (2022).
• Helmut K. Anheier and Stefan Toepler. Nonprofit Organizations: Theory, Management and Policy. 3rd edition, fully revised and expanded. New York and London: Routledge (2023).

• Helmut K. Anheier and Darinka Marković-Vastag. Gender Equality in the Creative Industries: A Comparative Study. London and New York: Routledge (2024).